Hospitality manager CV example

Hospitality management is measured in covers, occupancy and percentages of a pound. How many people you served, how full the rooms were, what the food cost you, what the wage bill took, and whether the team you built in March was still there in September. A CV describing a passion for guest service in a fast-paced environment hands a reader none of that. The example below is written in the language of a weekly profit and loss and a rota, because that is what an operations manager is reading for. The figures in it are ordinary. Most managers have them and leave them sitting in the weekly report.

Hospitality covers hotels, restaurants, pubs, events and contract catering, and the evidence does not swap between them. Say which one you ran, then give an operator what they measure.

The size of the operation. Covers per service and per week, or bedrooms and occupancy, or delegate numbers. Turnover. How many sittings, how many services a day, and whether you traded seven days.

Cost control. Gross profit on food and on drink, cost of sales, wage percentage against turnover, stock variance. These are usually the numbers an operator opens the conversation with, before anything about service.

The team and its churn. Headcount split front and back of house, hours rostered, how you recruited into a market where people leave quickly, agency spend, and who stayed.

Compliance and licensing. Personal licence, designated premises supervisor status, food safety level, allergen procedure, and the hygiene rating you were responsible for at the last inspection.

The service itself. Standards, guest feedback, the busiest service you have held, and what happened on the night it went wrong.

'1,100 to 1,400 covers a week' with a Saturday of about 190. A range is the honest way to write a number that moves, and the peak service is the one an operator wants. It also implies the pace and the kitchen size without a word about a fast-paced environment.

'Held food gross profit at 68%' and then how. Stock counts, supplier reviews, a costed reprice. The percentage alone could be somebody else's menu. The three mechanisms underneath it make the number yours.

'620 hours a week against a 29% wage target' is a rota written as a commercial decision rather than an administrative task. The fortnight-ahead detail is small and very specific, and specific detail is the kind a reader believes.

The recruitment bullet is about retention, not hiring. Anybody can fill a shift. Keeping four section heads in post through a year of churn is the thing an operator has personally failed at and would like help with.

Nothing in it claims a guest satisfaction score. The whole case is made out of the operating record.

The figures are already in the weekly report you have been sending somebody for years. Pull twelve months of it before you start writing.

Volume: covers per service, per day and per week, your busiest single service, average spend per head, bedroom occupancy and average daily rate in a hotel, delegate numbers and event sizes in conferencing.

Money: turnover, food and drink gross profit, cost of sales, wage percentage, stock variance, and any budget you set rather than received.

People: headcount front and back of house, hours rostered, agency spend, retention in the key sections, chefs trained, and how many of your team moved up or moved to a bigger site.

Compliance: personal licence, designated premises supervisor status, food safety and allergen training, your hygiene rating, health and safety, and any licensing condition or hearing you dealt with.

Occasions: the Christmas book, a wedding season, a refurbishment you traded through, a launch, a menu change, an unannounced inspection.

Writing 'fast-paced' instead of a number. Every venue is fast-paced. Covers, occupancy and wage percentage are the words that carry information.

Merging hotel, restaurant and events into one job. They share a sector and very little else. An operator hiring for a 90-bedroom hotel needs to know whether you have run rooms or only food and beverage.

Leaving the cost lines out. A manager who cannot talk about gross profit and wage percentage reads as a head waiter with a better job title, however good the service was.

Missing the licence. A personal licence, designated premises supervisor status and your food safety level are things an operator needs to know before the shortlist, not during the interview.

Describing service and never the team. Recruitment, induction and retention are the hardest parts of this job and the most valuable thing you can evidence on the page.

A CV that stops at the last service. Say what you changed, not only what you ran.

A hospitality advert tells you the size, the style and the pressure, if you read past the first paragraph.

Look for covers or bedrooms, branded or independent, wet led or food led, seven days or five, and whether gross profit, wage percentage or guest scores appear as accountabilities. 'Supporting the general manager' is a deputy role however it is titled. 'Full profit and loss responsibility' is not.

Then lead with the matching half of your record. Applying to a wet-led pub with your strongest work in a fine dining room, put the drinks gross profit, the licensing and the volume services first. Leave the plating out of it.

Career Auntie's CV review reads your CV against the advert you are answering and quotes the line behind each finding. In hospitality the one to watch for is a service you describe without the covers, the costs or the team behind it.